Adobe Flash, the once hugely popular multimedia software platform, was discontinued at the end of 2020 to a mostly positive reaction across social media and the developer ecosystem. Even though many of us look back fondly at the visual creativity unleashed by Flash in the 1990s, it was clear from the early 2000s that Flash simply wasn’t built to last. Matt May, who is head of inclusive design at Adobe, summed it up the best:
“As an animation platform, Flash launched the web into new directions. But once it became a UX platform, without the structure of web or OS apps, it left millions behind.”